Pearl Harbor tour: what time?

[twodogs]

We don't go until late May, but we are doing the Passport to Pearl Harbor, which includes the audio tour, Arizona, Missouri, Bowfin and Aviation museum. If you are really into it, this can be a good way to see it all. You do still have to book it at 60 days out to get the time for the Arizona.

 

[Badger88]

These are great to read through for future trips. Thanks.

 

[twinboyz98]

Great thread!

We have a reservation for a USS Missouri tour at 8:30 then our tickets for the USS Arizona Memorial are for noon. Also, about what time should we leave from Aulani if we want to catch the 8:00 am ceremony? TIA.

 

[buffettgirl]

Great thread!

We have a reservation for a USS Missouri tour at 8:30 then our tickets for the USS Arizona Memorial are for noon. Also, about what time should we leave from Aulani if we want to catch the 8:00 am ceremony? TIA.

At that time of the morning you're looking at at about 60 to 90 min. You're going to hit the worst of the rush hour traffic

 

[margot31]

My husband and I just went yesterday. We left our hotel which is right next to Aulani around 7-715 am..got there about 8---took longer only cause we ended up on ford island. We walked up to the ticket office and got free arizona tickets for 915. The best thing to do is go early cause they will shut the boats down due to winds. A co-worker of my husbands didn't get to go yesterday cause of that. (my husband was in hawaii for work now pleasure) they hand out 1300 free tickets for the arizona. But that does not include any other museums. But we have seen battle ships and had no interest in the sub. Only other part was the Air museum on ford island.

 

[crystal1313]

Hi Guys, I just made my log in on the website, going to attempt to get tickets next week for July. I read on this thread, you should get to Pearl Harbor about an hour before your ticket time. I cannot find that information anywhere on the website. Do you really need to get there that early? We are just trying to determine what time to try to get tickets for since we will be renting a car that morning from Alamo at Aulani. Alamo opens at 7am. I am thinking 9-10am tickets? We will be going on a Wednesday, so I am assuming there will be traffic. Thanks!

 

[Loveallthingsmouse]

Hi Guys, I just made my log in on the website, going to attempt to get tickets next week for July. I read on this thread, you should get to Pearl Harbor about an hour before your ticket time. I cannot find that information anywhere on the website. Do you really need to get there that early? We are just trying to determine what time to try to get tickets for since we will be renting a car that morning from Alamo at Aulani. Alamo opens at 7am. I am thinking 9-10am tickets? We will be going on a Wednesday, so I am assuming there will be traffic. Thanks!

I just got tickets this week for our visit, it says on the email confirmation that you receive should plan to be there 1 hour before your reserved time and to allow travel time and time to find parking. The tickets went fast, I was on right at 1:00 EDT.

 

[crystal1313]

Thanks Loveallthingsmouse! We are going to attempt two days and hopefully get the time we want. =) Thank you!!

 

[LittleStinkerbelle]

We booked 9 a.m. tickets at our 2 month mark. I'm glad we booked an early time because I was watching their Facebook page for the few weeks before we left and there were quite a number of days where the boats shut down due to wind around 11 a.m. or noon.

Funny thing (well, not funny at the time) - the night before we got a note under our door from the hotel that the road in front of our hotel (and a number of others around Waikiki) were going to be closing at 4:45 a.m. and not re-opening until 8:30 a.m. due to a marathon . So after a bunch of back and forth with the folks at the hotel, and eventually the valets who actually had the best info, we realized that if we wanted to ensure getting out of Waikiki in time we had to leave at 4:30. Yikes, so we spent some time at Anna Miller's (thank goodness I even knew about that ) and ended up at Pearl Harbor at 7 a.m. with the rest of the line waiting for day tickets. When we got to the desk the very kind ranger switched our tickets to the 7:30 a.m. boat. Bless him because it had been a long morning. So worth getting up at 3:30 a.m. though. Very moving experience.

 

[crystal1313]

Ok, so I logged in today to get our Pearl Harbor tickets at 9:45AM, pacific time. I could not purchase them until 10AM. I was trying for 10AM tickets, but noticed right away there was no option for 10AM, all other times had 25 tickets available except 10AM. So I ended up getting tickets at 9am. I hope we can make it in time since rental car doesn't open until 7AM.

 

[twodogs]

Ok, so I logged in today to get our Pearl Harbor tickets at 9:45AM, pacific time. I could not purchase them until 10AM. I was trying for 10AM tickets, but noticed right away there was no option for 10AM, all other times had 25 tickets available except 10AM. So I ended up getting tickets at 9am. I hope we can make it in time since rental car doesn't open until 7AM.

This happened to me too when I bought ours last month. 10am was just already at 0 before tickets were even open for purchase. We wanted 9am so it wasn't an issue, but it was strange. Hope you get your car or taxi worked out to get there in time; wishing pixie dust your way!

 

[crystal1313]

This happened to me too when I bought ours last month. 10am was just already at 0 before tickets were even open for purchase. We wanted 9am so it wasn't an issue, but it was strange. Hope you get your car or taxi worked out to get there in time; wishing pixie dust your way!

So weird twodogs!! I'm glad I wasn't the only one! Curious, were you getting tickets for a Wednesday? I was wondering if it had something to do with the swap meet being on Wednesdays. The website also crashed on me at one point and I freaked out thinkingI lost my tickets!! It was stressful!


I think we have worked it out to just rent two compact cars instead of a van. It's about the same cost if we get a standard size car. Maybe about $10 more.

 

[Mazz519]

Go early and spend half the day there.. we reserved our tickets 2 months out went on the tour and then walked the grounds till about 12pm was really a nice and humbling day

 

[cgattis]

We have booked the NCL cruise for June 2017, which sails in/out of Honolulu Saturday to Saturday. We will check into Aulani Saturday after our cruise docks. I'd like to spend the first day relaxing, but it seems like if we want to do Pearl Harbor and the swap meet, it might be best to do it early in our stay, in case weather forces a change, we will have other opportunities. We also want to do Diamond Head, Hanauma Bay, and (I guess.....) the Dole Plantation. I'm thinking Pearl Harbor and swap meet on Sunday, and I'd like to get an early start, so should I shoot for the 7:30 tour? I think we'll want to see the Bowfin and the air museum too. Just did a battleship last summer so might skip that. That would still give us time to catch the tail end of the swap meet hopefully? And how about lunch in that area? I know a big breakfast might be good beforehand but not sure we can get going quite that early!

Sounds like both Hanauma Bay and Diamond Head are best done early too, though, and I really don't want to get up early every day. Anyone ever done Diamond Head early and then Pearl Harbor late in the day? Good input about the winds later, though. *sigh* Just TOO many things to see!

 

[twodogs]

So weird twodogs!! I'm glad I wasn't the only one! Curious, were you getting tickets for a Wednesday? I was wondering if it had something to do with the swap meet being on Wednesdays. The website also crashed on me at one point and I freaked out thinkingI lost my tickets!! It was stressful!


I think we have worked it out to just rent two compact cars instead of a van. It's about the same cost if we get a standard size car. Maybe about $10 more.

YES we are going on a Wednesday so there may be some link there. I think the two compacts is a great solution. We are 4 adults and 2 kids so we are renting a full sized SUV. If we were not having to pay for parking for 8 nights, I would have possibly been better off with two smaller cars. But doubling the parking fee was going to make that option more expensive.

 

[crystal1313]

YES we are going on a Wednesday so there may be some link there. I think the two compacts is a great solution. We are 4 adults and 2 kids so we are renting a full sized SUV. If we were not having to pay for parking for 8 nights, I would have possibly been better off with two smaller cars. But doubling the parking fee was going to make that option more expensive.

So odd!! I wondered if it was a tour group or something. We have 4 adults and 2 kids too. Parking is why we won't have a car over night. We are just renting for the day. Totally don't blame you!!

 

[cmph]

Those of you that have gone with the 60-days-out reserved tix - did you bring a printout of the email or anything when you showed up? As far as I can tell from the account I had to create, there is nothing to print... but I didn't want to overlook something I need to bring with me that day.

 

[crystal1313]

@cmph, they send you a confirmation email after you reserve tickets and there's a bar code on that, so I am going to print that out and bring it with us.

 

[cmph]

@cmph, they send you a confirmation email after you reserve tickets and there's a bar code on that, so I am going to print that out and bring it with us.

We're going next week, so I have the recreation.gov confirmation email, but it doesn't have a bar code. It has a reservation number, but no attachments or anything that says "print". If I click on "view reservations", it takes me to their main page to log in, but there isn't anything to print there in my account either. I can review my reservation, but that's it. I guess I will just print the email and hope that all they need to see is my reservation number.

 

[crystal1313]

That's odd! Right under my reservation number on the email, there is a bar code. I am sure just having the reservation number will be sufficient. Can anyone else chime in?